


Since No One Has Yet Returned Alive

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Banners from the Turrets [7]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Decepticon Rung, M/M, Slice of Life, the empathy exams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 10:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: Three encounters with three notorious Decepticons. Rung may work here, but that doesn't mean anyone has tolikeit. Ft. unasked for psychoanalysis, character study, and Tarn being unfortunately horny on main





	Since No One Has Yet Returned Alive

**Author's Note:**

> _Finally_. Some of you may recognize a chunk of this from my tumblr back in May. Surprise! I finished it. Title pulled from [this.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock#Epigraph)

If I but thought that my response were made  
to one perhaps returning to the world,  
this tongue of flame would cease to flicker.  
But since, up from these depths, no one has yet  
returned alive, if what I hear is true,  
I answer without fear of being shamed.

As a former Senator, Shockwave is used to being recognized wherever he goes. This was true before the empurata, and it is still more pervasive after it. While the mech he’d been before the procedure had enjoyed a certain amount of attention from the public, his current preference would be for no one to attempt casual conversation with him ever again. Unfortunately, as he is head of military science in Megatron’s perpetual revolution machine, every visit to headquarters is perturbed by inevitable requests for favors and alliances.

The elevator, then, is his least preferred aspect of life aboard a base. Fuel can be taken in one’s quarters, one’s laboratory can be sequestered, but at some point one will be required to make use of the damnable elevator between levels.

Shockwave steps into the lift. A small mech with an unidentifiable alt mode is staring at him. Based on his size, he is most likely a technician of some kind. There is a non-zero chance that this mech will attempt to initiate conversation, most likely in regards to interest in the science division. 

“My staff is full,” Shockwave informs him, selecting the appropriate level and tapping in his passcode. “If you are looking for a transfer, look elsewhere.”

“What?” the possible technician asks.

Hm. Not that, then. “If you are hoping to gain access to testing materials, you may submit an application through the official channels. We are always in need of testers. The survival rate is low.”

The mech frowns. “I appear to have missed a step in this conversation,” he says. He offers his straight-palmed hand, apparently expecting a handshake. “I’m Rung, I work in medical.” 

Shockwave stares at his empty hand until he finally puts it away, slowly, like he’s still waiting for Shockwave to catch up with him. The elevator doors finally slide shut.

“Actually, I’m a psychiatrist by trade,” the medic goes on, fixing Shockwave with a look that presumably is meant to communicate something.

Shockwave despairs of small talk.

The medic clears his intake, politely hiding it behind a fist. “What I mean is,” he says, “one of the services I provide here is counseling. For combat trauma, of course, but also for less recent traumatic experiences…?”

The lift is crawling towards its destination. Shockwave resists the impulse to tap his arm-blaster against his thigh. “If you would like access to the remaining beta testers, you will have to wait some time. As I said, the survival rate is low.”

Rung opens his mouth, and then closes it with an expression of some distress. “I notice,” he says, changing tactics, “that you still retain your monocular facial structure from the empurata.”

This is somewhat unexpected, and therefore, marginally more interesting.

“You’ve been a high ranking Decepticon at least since the massacre of the senate,” Rung goes on. “High enough ranking to have been given access to our frame altering technology even if you _ weren’t _ the one whose department had implemented it. Furthermore, one of Megatron’s central campaign promises was _ heads and hands for empuratees_. By all rights, you ought to have been the first in line for facial reconstruction.”

The medic is difficult to read. Contrary to popular thought, Shockwave is perfectly capable of reading emotion in the frames and faces of other mechs. It is simply that his response to those emotions is never what others expect or desire. This one seems keen, but in the way of a scavenger warily circling potential prey. 

“You wouldn’t even have had to settle for the mask and intake that most of the other petitioners had to settle for. With your resources, your personal ingenuity, I have no doubt you could have recreated your old face in a week. The fact that you haven’t reconstructed anything for yourself is especially glaring given the fact that you’ve had one hand restored at some point, presumably for efficiency in your scientific pursuits.”

Shockwave could make several guesses as to where the medic is leading this line of thought, but he finds himself having trouble determining the most likely one. He is unaccustomed to being treated as a specimen. Shockwave does not bother with emotions, and so he cannot say that he hates it. He would, however, prefer not to replicate this experiment.

“Some people cannot live inside of pain,” Rung tells him. “Some people have to wear it like an upgrade, like armor, hoping that others will see their pain and process it for them.”

The medic has actually begun to approach Shockwave, even though the lift has come to a stop. 

“Your treatment disturbed the fabric of Cybertronian society,” he says. “You were a progressive, and you were trying to help. The people’s sense of betrayal on your behalf was—in my own experience—profound. You were a senator. Your own colleagues sanctioned your mutilation.” He comes to a stop at Shockwave’s knees, barely half as tall as Shockwave himself, peering up with an expression that is at once remote and intimate. “Senator,” he says, “did you feel betrayed?”

The lift doors open.

“Are you holding on to that face,” the medic says, “that helm, because some part of you is still angry for what was done to you? Are you still hurting, even now?”

Shockwave does not make the decision to retreat. Nonetheless, he finds that the distance between the two of them is growing, one backwards step at a time. The medic doesn’t pursue him. The medic only watches, something like sadness in the shape of his mouth, the tilt of his brows. Shockwave turns. His temporary laboratory is just down the hall. He will go there. He will go there, and he will work.

Shockwave is not bothered with emotions. Therefore, he does not dislike Rung. There would be no point in it. He does not have time for sentimental medics with sentimental questions, when Megatron is hounding him for a combiner and a thousand other petty projects that he will have to juggle before he can resume his own studies. The notion of outsourcing one’s emotional state is laughably romantic drivel, unscientific and borderline mystical. 

He will forget this soon. There is no reason to remember it.

Justice Division Officer Tarn has not been Glitch for a very long time. Except to Lord Megatron, who had tenderly called him by the old Academy nickname as he trained Tarn to methodically carry out even the most cold blooded orders without flinching. He was special, Lord Megatron had said; an incredible weapon, an invaluable asset, a general’s treasure. An incredible infiltration agent at first, and then after word of his voice had gotten around, ideal bodyguard for tense negotiations, a wall of metal that could kill with a word. Not a single day of his tenure had been wasted with the grunts on the front lines. He had the run of the army, his flawless devotion opening ranks like a key. Any team, any outpost—all he had to do was request it. The one and only thing that Megatron had forbidden him from was Rung.

Rung had been with the Decepticons for a bit longer than Tarn. Well established enough, Tarn supposed, to merit the stern aside that Lord Megatron had treated Tarn to, upon his enjoinment to the ranks.

“Rung is one of my most prized acquisitions,” Megatron had warned him, “his expertise is essential to the prosperity of the Cause. Do you understand?”

In truth, if Lord Megatron hadn’t seen fit to instruct Tarn so explicitly, he doubts he would have noticed Rung at all. Megatron’s wisdom was indeed multifold: to advise Tarn in the best upholding of his wishes, and to direct Tarn’s attention where it might otherwise stray. It had been difficult at first to keep tabs on the CMO, despite the fact that Tarn had the highest clearance of anyone below high command. He seemed to slip, between appearances, into a nebulous nothing state—neither here nor there, ceasing to exist when he was not interacting with an observer. It was borderline quantum. Each time, Tarn shook off memories of a certain excited amateur physicist, of impromptu lectures from another life.

Perhaps it’s the mundanity of Rung’s lifestyle outside his duties—regular recharge cycles, according to the power discharge data; no sign of misappropriated funds or vices on which to spend them. Only the rarest contact with Swindle. No shoreleave visits to brothels either Decepticon or neutral, no bets placed with the usual suspects. Many of the mechs Tarn questions about Rung do not even seem to know his name, despite working on the same ship as him. The further one goes from the medbay, the spottier the recognition becomes. 

Tarn, too, is troubled by the way Rung tests his attention span. If he hadn’t written himself a recurring calendar item, reminding him to check on Rung’s status periodically, he suspects that the doctor would have slipped entirely from his mind by the third or fourth shift cycle from Lord Megatron’s warning. It gets easier to stay focused with each time, though. Almost as if Tarn is wearing grooves into his own mind with each forced recollection, a reservoir into which Rung’s existence can pour. The deeper Tarn pries into Rung’s existence, the more he feels as if he is chasing a ghost. If the mech were not so clearly mesh and metal—if he were not _ so _ clearly mesh and metal and… lubricant…

Tarn turns away from the security monitor, which is showing Starscream—of all mechs—doing something with his fingers that Tarn had honestly not believed could be replicated outside of erotic sim vids. There’s something churning in his tanks that it takes several focused minutes to identify as a combination of arousal and consternation. Rung is _ Lord Megatron’s _ property. Tarn should not be witness to him in such an intimate state. _ But neither should Starscream._

Tarn flexes his fingers from the tight fists they’ve clenched into, centering himself. He has never understood how Lord Megatron’s handling of Starscream is arranged. Truly, only the brilliance of a master tactician could make that fork-tongued vermin to serve the Cause. Still, Lord Megatron often makes decisions regarding Starscream that Tarn finds _ far _ too lenient. Intel indicates that these rendezvouses are fairly common in character, for whatever reason. Perhaps Rung is a kind of unofficial… morale officer. So far, Tarn has mostly seen Megatron utilize the metaphorical stun baton on Starscream. Perhaps he is seeing the high grade side of the equation now. 

Well, Tarn reasons. If _ Starscream _is permitted a closer brush with the CMO, then Tarn should certainly be allowed just as much.

Some time afterward, Tarn lets himself into the medbay during Rung’s shift. It’s a fairly quiet day, between shipments from the nearest battlefield, only a few long term patients drowsing in the recovery berths. In the repair bay, one of the nurses is switching out the filtration unit on a lubricant IV. Rung himself is checking the levels of a weld-scarred behemoth, probably a drill of some kind, scrolling through chart data with a small frown.

As he’s closing up the charts again, he finally spots Tarn observing from the shadows of the doorway, just outside the unusually bright lights of the medbay. His hand twitches reflexively for something on the nearby tray, possibly one of the laser scalpels, before relaxing and dropping to his side.

“Oh,” he says, “Tarn, isn’t it now? I heard you were being promoted. Congratulations, I suppose. Did you need a checkup?”

Tarn pushes off the wall and makes his way to the nearest unoccupied berth. He settles back on it, careful to strike the right balance between meaningful looming and graceful economy of movement. It unnerves people to see someone his size move so easily, but at the same time they mustn’t forget how much of him there is to move.

“If you can spare a moment,” he says, and offers his wrist port to the doctor.

Rung sanitizes his own jack with an efficient twist and pull, discarding the wipe in an unobtrusive waste bin as he crosses the room. He isn’t much to look at, really. Not a typical doctor in any respect, from his colors to his size. Tarn happens to know that forged medics are built dense, for hauling, and usually thick armored enough to batter their way through a rudimentary blockade. Rung is neither of those things. The jack, itself, isn’t part of Rung’s native hardware. It loops through some kind of auxiliary motherboard and then up into his glasses, clearly a black market item originating in some back-alley doctor’s tool collection.

The jack locks into his medical port, and immediately he can feel the faint buzz of Rung’s systems prompting data from his own. Some people purport to find the sensation erotic, although Tarn has never been particularly inclined to medical fetish. Today, however, he is a little more aware of the symbolic implication of jack and port. The feeling of Rung probing inside him; the memory of Starscream’s fingers disappearing into slick protomesh.

His interface systems flicker to life for a moment. Rung frowns at the data scrolling across the insides of his glasses.

“You weren’t forged a medic, were you?” Tarn asks, grabbing the back of Rung’s wrist with his linked-in hand and turning it over, inspecting the fingers which stiffen in his grip. 

“No,” Rung allows. “I wasn’t.”

“And yet, you seem to have no difficulty operating as a medic,” Tarn goes on. “Nor heading a medical ward.”

“I attended medical school during the dark ages,” Rung explains, tapping the side of his glasses to adjust the readouts. He’s only half paying attention to Tarn. “Things were much more chaotic then. And, perversely, more free. Quite a lot of students were forced to drop out when the grid broke down. After that, the university would take anyone who could test in at a high enough level.”

“And what did you do before that?”

Rung paused, his eyes invisible behind the scroll of data, and said, “I have no idea. I was in medical school for a very long time. The memory decay sets in around the same time I graduated into the research donor program. I specialized in neurological disorders…”

The jack ejects from Tarn’s port, slipping seamlessly back into Rung’s apparatus. It does give him a slightly unnerving cast, the exposed wires running from his hip to his helm. The very picture of an unlicensed back alley hacksaw.

“Your readouts are all normal,” Rung tells him, “at least the ones I can see past your blackops screening. I can run some manual tests to make sure the rest of it is in standard parameters, although you’re clearly a rebuilt model, so it’ll be hard to test against your baseline without your baseline data on hand. I don’t suppose you brought…?”

“I’m afraid not,” Tarn says. “I admit, doctor, I mostly came by to get a closer look at you.”

“At me?” Rung frowns. 

“Tell me, doctor,” Tarn purrs, “where is your Decepticon insignia?”

For the first time, Rung becomes visibly uncomfortable. He has noticed that Tarn is still holding his wrist.

“Surely someone who is so much in Lord Megatron’s _ personal _ favor should wear their brand proudly,” Tarn says, reeling Rung in slowly. “Or perhaps you have it somewhere equally _ personal_. I can only imagine how lovely your spark chamber might look in purple, if you were to open it up for those whom Lord Megatron sees fit to grace with your presence.”

Rung stares at him, apparently at a loss for words. It is difficult to tell under those glasses, but he doesn’t appear to have been expecting this. No matter. Tarn can make his case quite persuasively.

He supposes he can see the appeal of a small frame, in this respect. He likes the idea of Megatron handling Rung this way... perhaps even in this very medbay... “Lord Megatron speaks very highly of you,” Tarn says, as Rung is dragged level with his own folded knees. “Of your… skills.”

Rung looks down at their legs. He looks up at the grip around his wrist.

“Actually I’ve never taken the brand,” he says. When he meets Tarn's eye, there’s something hard and cold in his expression. “And I’m not for rent.”

Tarn’s hand squeezes down sharply. “You didn’t take the brand?” he says, joints creaking from how still he’s suddenly holding himself. His warm assumptions unravel and rewrite themselves in a frigid scrawl. “You didn’t take the brand, and yet you crawl into Lord Megatron’s berth like some kind of-”

Rung rips free of his grasp, his wrist leaving scrapes of orange paint in Tarn’s knuckles. He clutches it to his chest, immediately skating backwards over the medbay floor. “I think that’s quite enough,” he says, sharply, his stance low and tight as if he were preparing to fend off a strike. “I can find another medic for you if you would like to continue your evaluation at a different time.”

Tarn considers him for a moment. A little opportunist in the nest, a potential leak at such a high level… 

“That won’t be necessary,” Tarn says. Component by heavy component, he draws himself up to his full height until he is towering over Rung, swallowing him in his shadow.

Rung settles back into a more defensive stance, but only marginally. His heels are digging into the discolored medbay floor. His brows are deeply furrowed. It's good that he is afraid. There is plenty to be afraid of.

“Whatever Megatron wants from you,” Tarn says, “pray you provide it well and willingly. Because when _ he’s _done with you—” Tarn leans in a fraction closer, “—then you and I shall have a long talk about where you see yourself in the next five years.”

Rung just glares at him, unmoved. It could be that he doesn’t foresee such a day ever coming. Perhaps Tarn has stretched the bounds of his authority enough for today. It’s true that Tarn has been explicitly ordered not to interfere with Rung, and the appearance of a routine check up can only cover so much. If Rung reports this to Megatron now, it likely won’t end in Tarn’s favor. 

Rung must be confident in this, to be standing there so cool and still. But no matter. Tarn has learned patience above all else.

“I have ways of dealing with mercenary little buymechs in this army,” Tarn promises him. “You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last. Do keep that in mind.”

He wouldn’t dare go against Lord Megatron’s explicit orders, of course. He is an exemplary lieutenant. But there are times, yes, times when more subtle methods are necessary.

When Deadlock appears in his quarters, without fanfare or warning, Rung doesn’t seem anywhere near as frightened as he ought to be. 

He ought to be _ very _ nervous. Everyone knows what Deadlock does. And although the Decepticon army’s CMO has never been formally introduced to him, Deadlock knows his own reputation precedes him. 

“Oh,” Rung says, as he turns on the light to find Deadlock sitting in his chair, “hello.”

It would be an understatement to say that Rung isn’t at all what Deadlock expected, after what he’s heard swirling through the grapevine. He’s small, but Deadlock was prepared for that. It’s the lack of weaponry, the lack of armor, the lack even of meaningful surgical implements or scientific kibble. If Deadlock were a less hardened mech, he might find the confidence of it _ unnerving._

In the second between turning from the door and spotting Deadlock, Rung goes from looking visibly weary to looking cool and sturdy and patient. It’s an impressive trick. Not that Deadlock doesn’t know plenty of ‘Cons who can switch on a new face at the flip of a switch, but the fact that he’s doing it now, under these circumstances? Well that’s not a bad show.

Rung considers him for a moment. Deadlock finishes cleaning his gun and screws the muzzle back into place, letting the flat of it rest across his knees like a quiet promise. 

Something flickers in Rung’s expression, but under the glasses, it’s nearly impossible to read. “I don’t normally take appointments in my quarters,” he says, “but if there’s something you don’t feel comfortable discussing in my office, I could make an exception.”

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Deadlock says, snapping the ammo clip into place. He’d been reading through some of the files on Rung’s recreational datapad in the quiet before Rung’s arrival, but he set it aside a while ago. He doesn’t know how to feel about the correspondences he’s stumbled across, the ones saved deep down in the memory banks. Lord Megatron and the CMO, _ bantering_. Discussing _ theater_. It boggles the processor.

Rung’s expression goes a little tight. “Yes, Deadlock, I know who you are.” He comes across the room, laying down his work ‘pad on the desk as he goes. “If this is about Turmoil, believe me you’re not the first to ask, but I’m afraid there’s really nothing I can do at this point.”

Deadlock tilts his head. “Soldiers often ask you to work on their officers?”

“Work on,” Rung repeats. He frowns, like the phrasing bothers him. “Occasionally, people do ask for me to intercede with their superior officers on their behalf, yes.”

“And Megatron lets you do that?” Deadlock says, which is more or less the reason that his clip is still in his gun and not unloaded inside of Rung’s spark chamber. If the things he’s heard are true, he wants to know how much of it is sanctioned. Part of him bridles from the very thought—Megatron, of all mech, would never, _ could _never—but the rest of him is a grim pessimist, and if there’s rust rotting at the heart of the Cause, he intends to know about it.

Rung opens his mouth. For a second nothing comes out. 

“Well, as much as he can, I think. I used to have more leeway. Recently I’ve been… encountering friction,” he says, after a moment. “Megatron actually offered to do something about Turmoil for me once, back when he was just a sub-commander. Perhaps I should have taken him up on it.”

_ Do something about…? _ What’s that supposed to mean?

Rung pauses, at the edge of the berth. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I know it’s unprofessional, but I have these aches. Would you mind terribly if I…?”

Deadlock doesn’t know what he’s asking—whether he can sit down, maybe?—but he nods anyway. He can never help but indulge a medic when they talk like that. The wear and tear medics take kind of gets his engine going.

What Rung actually does is reach behind himself and disengage his dorsal kibble. It comes away easily, leaving the flat, smooth panel of his back as if it was never there. The moment the wheel-pack hits the floor, Rung relaxes visibly. 

“Sorry,” he says again. “Old injuries.”

“You’re filed as a non-combatant,” Deadlock says, narrowing his eyes. He would have prepared differently if he had known otherwise. Of course this isn’t an official visit; he hasn’t been briefed, there could be clearance above his standard clearance...

“Oh, it’s not combat,” Rung laughs, “I was taken apart by the Functionists several times, and they were more interested in the taking apart than the putting back together. I wasn’t always reassembled perfectly.”

Ahah. Deadlock leans in. “Is that where you learned the mnemosurgery?”

Rung goes still. His spark flares, deep in his chest, visible through the glass panel inset there. “I’m going to make Starscream regret his decisions with such a deep and abiding shame that he will spontaneously confess to every lie he’s ever told,” Rung says, in a voice that is cold with rage. “I thought _ officers _would know better than to believe those rumors.”

Deadlock sits back. He’s not exactly officer of the year, but he’s not about to tell the CMO that. Rung is visibly livid, fingers rapidly tapping against the edge of the berth, glaring at something only he can see. 

“Every time I walk into the medical bay now, there’s some poor spark that nearly climbs out the airlock trying to get away from me,” he vents. “I never thought I’d have to put up with _ fear _ at the sight of my face, it really is too much. Too much by half. What did I join this movement for if not to ease the friction on the ones who took the best of worse options, and now I find that my simple _ presence _-”

He slumps, digging his fingers under his glasses to rub his optics. 

“He thinks he’s helping,” Rung says to himself, the way that you mutter an old calming mantra. “He thinks he’s helping. Never mind that I never asked for his help, he only understands one kind of strength, and he thinks he’s helping.”

“Who’s that you’re muttering about?” Deadlock asks. So far nothing about this encounter has been up to his expectations and what can he say? He’s curious.

“Starscream,” Rung says, like it’s unimportant, like it’s obvious, like it isn’t _ Starscream,_ living embodiment of a knife in the back, the silver-tongued terror himself.

“Starscream doesn’t help people,” Deadlock says with a sharp laugh. “Except himself, obviously.”

“I suppose he’d like us to think that,” Rung says, not sounding particularly amused. “He started this whole-” Rung waves a hand, “-shadow play rumor. That I’m some kind of mad scientist routinely bending people’s processors to… I don’t _ know _ what, people usually fill in that part themselves based on whatever frightens them most. I wouldn’t know how to execute a mnemosurgery if my life depended on it.”

“Uhuh,” Deadlock says. He smiles, indulgently, but doesn’t relax. Everybody knows the old saying: never trust a person with their needles in your neck.

“I don’t know what to _ do _ about this,” Rung sighs. Then he stops, and he looks up sharply. The point of his gaze is like the wicked tip of a paring knife. “Did you come to me,” he says, “to have someone shadow played?”

Deadlock could probably just kill him now and swing by the commissary for a bit of a job-well-done reward, but something about the way Rung looks _ through him _ —looks _ into _ him—has him almost breathless. He feels something in the strut of his spine, in the edge of his spark.

“I was sent to have someone taken care of,” he says, playing vague and uninterested even as his sensor net tingles.

“Well I can’t help you,” Rung says, sharply.

“Is it a money thing?” Deadlock asks. He wants to see what it’ll take to make the CMO break his pretty, professional facade. “Money ain’t an issue for me.”

“It’s not money,” Rung retorts. There’s a distinctly icy chill in his bearing now, in the set of his slim shoulders. “I can’t, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. Money is not the issue.”

“Now don’t act like you’re so above it all,” Deadlock tells him. “We all know what almost happened to Megatron. Shrinks like you signed off on shadowplay all the time, even before.”

Rung rubs the seams of his faceplate, a grimace distorting his mouth. “Personality adjustments, you mean,” he says. “Yes, we did sign off on those, didn’t we.”

Rung draws his hand back from his face and stares at it. The fingertips where the wicked needles would emerge are at the moment only blunt and dull.

“It was supposed to be controlled. Ethical. There were complicated, nearly byzantine steps—red tape a mile long—countless hoops you had to jump through in order to even _ think _ of ordering the procedure. You needed two medical professionals to sign off on it, you needed next-of-kin consent, you needed stacks of evaluations and trials and affidavits... We had no idea at the time— _ I _ had no idea—how easy it would be to simply walk up to a surgeon and then walk away, no one the wiser…”

“You don’t gotta convince me, Doc. I’m just here to do a job.”

The truth is, though, that Rung’s act is pretty good. Not too over the top, not too _ woe is me_. Just the right amount of bitterness and self-reproach. Deadlock wouldn’t be surprised if there’s even some truth to it.

“Believe it or not,” Rung says, rubbing his fingers together, “PA was invented to help people. We were supposed to be healers. Mainly people with suicidal code glitches—involuntary prompt recurrences, intrusive thoughts, anxiety feedback loops—that sort of thing. And then it was approved for hallucinatory syndromes. And then for violent offenders. And then for anti-social personalities… and then you turn around and every empurata sentence has a PA order attached to it, and you don’t know where the line broke but it’s somewhere long behind you, and you can’t do anything but…”

He drops his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says, optics flickering as if they had been rebooted, and then he puts on a smile. “I find my regrets catching up with me more and more these days. Who is it you wanted help with? Maybe this is a problem that can be solved with mediation. I can’t promise you I’ll have much political clout, but I’m a fairly good problem solver.”

Deadlock watches him, tracking every motion, every micro-expression. This really isn’t what he was ready for. Polished, posh? Sure. Eloquent, light-fingered? Yes. The quiet nightmare, Megatron’s pet abomination, a medic gone so thoroughly rotten that his very touch corrupted— Deadlock had been more than ready to put an end to _ that— _

The mech in front of him is visibly weary, sore and soldiering on, old in a way that is almost disorientingly palpable. 

“You and the boss, huh,” Deadlock says, his processor still whirring. “Always wondered what was up with that. Everybody knows he’s got a _ thing _ about needles.”

“Are you speculating about my personal life?” Rung says, with some measure of exhausted humor. 

It’s not exactly unknown that Megatron and the CMO have a personal understanding of some sort or another. The medics all seem to know something about it, especially here on the flagship, and Deadlock spends a lot of time in the medbay, laying the sweetness on whoever happens to be on shift that day. 

That’s the other thing that made Deadlock hesitate, when Tarn pulled him aside. See, he hangs out with a lot of medics. He’s got a type, what can he say. He’s a sucker for a flash of medical red and a boxy chassis. And the medics around here? They talk about Rung like he single-handedly wrangled Luna 1. Most places Deadlock goes, the staff warm up to him fast. He likes them, and they like the security of having someone strong and scary around to back them up when front-liners start throwing their weight around. It’s a no-brainer symbiosis. 

Here on the flag-ship, the medics carry themselves differently. They don’t exactly tell him _ no_, around here, but he thinks—given the way Rung has said a couple times that his influence is on the wane—maybe there was a time not that long ago that they _ would _ have. _ You know what Rung will say_, he hears them remarking to each other; _ Rung won’t like this, Rung won’t be having with this, wait until Rung hears about— _

And, more quietly, more softly: _ has anyone brought him his—no, I’ll take it, I want to check on how he’s—well he’s always doing it to us, I think it’s plenty fair— _

It’s not that medics are always good judges of character. They put up with _ him_, for one thing. Bad people can be convenient, useful. The indiscriminate fear of prey can lead to all sorts of ugly compromises. But there’s a way people talk about _ the monster they know_, and it’s not the way they talk about Rung.

What it reminds Deadlock of, he realizes in a sick heave of his tanks, is the way the other streetrats used to talk about Gasket. Gasket had been a cool breath on a hot temper, a steadying hand on an itching trigger finger. Even now, there’s a voice in his head that whispers to him on dismal muddy nights, huddling in the dark of a sour battlefield, _ what would Gasket think of this? What would Gasket think of _ you_? _

He never understood how someone who had so little could be so kind. There’s a strange power a person has over you, when they’re so ready to see you at your best. When they’re so happy to see you succeed. Different than the persuasive power of empurata, but no less real.

“Say I tell you who it is that sent me,” Deadlock says. “What do you do about it?”

Rung is frowning, but not really at Deadlock specifically. “It depends on what’s going on.” He sits forward, hands clasped in his lap. “Are you really here for someone else, Deadlock? Or are you here for you?”

You almost gotta laugh. Like Deadlock would ever come crawling to someone else to fix his problems. If you can’t take care of yourself, you don’t deserve to be taken care of. Merit through strength, that’s the Decepticon way.

Rung doesn’t seem to be on the same page. At the flash of humor in Deadlock’s expression, his severity only buckles down. “If someone is mistreating you,” he says, “officer, associate, subordinate even—it doesn’t matter who it is, it’s not right. I promise you complete and total confidentiality, on my honor as a therapist.”

Bemused, Deadlock says, “That’s a weird thing to swear on.”

“A person swears according to what matters to them,” Rung replies. “And that matters to me.”

“Not the Cause, huh?” Deadlock says, sharpening a bit. 

“My cause is helping people,” Rung tells him. “If I can’t do that, all else is meaningless.”

They stare at each other for a moment, the silent room between them dim and thick with things that _ could _ be said. When Tarn pulled Deadlock aside at the docking station, full of grim hints and oblique warnings, Deadlock had no reason to take him at anything but his word. Deadlock and Tarn had always kept a sort of camaraderie, a synchronicity of purpose, despite the uneasy edges where they didn’t dare try to understand each other. If Tarn told Deadlock that someone was endangering the success of their faction, that there was corruption at the heart of the Nemesis, then Deadlock took him at his word. If Tarn said, _ someone is threatening all that we stand for, _ Deadlock acted accordingly.

The thing is, he thinks Rung means it. There’s no reason for him to talk like that if he’s trying to convince Deadlock he’s a good Megatron-fearing Decepticon. He ought to be talking about retribution and defense and the benefits of making deals, soothing the bruised ego of the mech who was weak enough to resort to seeking him out.

Talking like this, he sounds like an autobot—quote unquote nobly trying to save the cowering scum of the upper crust, the spineless middle class who won’t help themselves, all the weak-tanked quibblers who wouldn’t stand up and _ fight _ for their rights when they had the chance. And the part of Deadlock who snarls at that is all tangled up with the other part of him, the part that is drawn to a med tent like a magnet is drawn north, who sits on the boxes of spare parts and watches the hypnotic rhythm of medic hands on shattered innards, the pull and twist and sear of mesh as a broken thing becomes whole again.

The part of him who mourns for Gasket. The part of him that remembers a clinic in a Dead End alley. 

“I know I’m not popular,” Rung says, as if he’s willing Deadlock to understand. “There’s plenty of Decepticons who don’t like having someone like me in charge. They don’t like to see someone giving orders who can’t back it up with hard physical force. Someone like Hook should be in charge, they say. Hook can _ make _ you take an order.” 

“Aft-kicking equals authority,” Deadlock observes. 

Rung’s mouth quirks up. “I’m perfectly aware that without Megatron behind me, I’d be ripped to shreds within the week by someone who disliked my tone, or my size, or generally took offense to my existence. I can fight where necessary, but I’m not going to win any pit matches.” He taps his round shoulder, where the small white medic’s cross is underlined with rank markers. “But I’m here, for better or worse, and I’m going to try and make a difference.”

When he found Deadlock in this room, weapon in hand, he chose to close the door behind them both. All at once, Deadlock is intensely aware of how vulnerable Rung is—not because he’s unarmed or unaugmented, but because he is choosing a kind of honesty that strips him bare and leaves him at the mercy of someone who can and may choose to hurt him at any time. It’s a leap of faith, and it’s a leap of faith that Rung seems willing to take as routinely as waking up and leaving his room.

His perspective on this whole encounter shifts. In this moment, Deadlock understands how someone might want to protect a thing like this. If you took out the part where it’s supposed to be _ Starscream_, he can easily understand how someone might lie to preserve this.

“So,” Rung says, letting his hands settle loosely back into his lap, “did you want to tell me why you came here, Deadlock?”

For a second, he’s convinced that Rung knows everything—Tarn and the spacedock and the quiet corner where he whispered rumors into Deadlock’s audial, knee against thigh, mouth beneath mask; the low and earnest way he said, _ I thought you should hear it from me, I know how personally you take threats to our medical corps. _

But no. 

“Already told you, didn’t I?” Deadlock says. He stands, holsters his weapon, pockets the cleaning rag. Rung watches him closely. He doesn’t really look like he buys it, but all he says is:

“I suppose you did, yes.”

That datapad he was reading earlier was full of little letters from Megatron, annotated documents shared between them, poetry and history and even work memos scribbled over and passed back and forth. It had made his tanks churn when he was looking through it. Before Tarn’s whispered warnings, the Decepticon CMO had been barely a murmur at the edge of his hearing, a background radiation only spoken about in medbays. How could someone who knew Megatron so intimately be such an unknown? Why was Megatron keeping him secret? What ugly compromises were buried under the careful silence of their leader?

Now he doesn't know what to think.

“I’ll let my guy know you’re not taking on any business,” Deadlock says, as he packs up, half hoping that the secret ugly thing will finally bubble to the surface, half dreading it.

Rung only nods, looking tired. When Deadlock is at the door, he says, “What about you, Deadlock? Is there anything I can do for you?”

Deadlock pauses, hand hovering. It's all so messy. Nothing is as clean as he wanted it to be.

“You can get some sleep,” he says, the words coming out rough. “Lotta bodies in the medbay right now. Sooner you patch up my squad, sooner I can get back out on the front lines.”

When he glances back over his shoulder, Rung is smiling at him. It’s a melancholy smile, a little too knowing, a little too familiar.

“Are you so eager to get back to it?” Rung asks him. “Wouldn’t you like a rest as well?”

Deadlock stiffens. “I’ll rest when the war is over,” he says. 

“Yes,” Rung says, quietly. “When the war is over.”

Everything will be alright, when the war is over. The sooner the better, whatever it takes. No point in wondering what Gasket would think of him now. Gasket is gone. And in the world they’ll make, no one will ever have to live like Gasket again.

“I’ll focus on killing autobots. You just focus on putting us back together.” He punches the door release button. “You do your job,” he says, “and I’ll do mine.”

And next time Tarn comes on all sweet, asking him to do his dirty work, that’s exactly what he’ll say.


End file.
